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A most important principle

in

true Christianity

THE FRENCH 1500--1526

The evangelical Christians of Meaux [in France], seeing their leaders dispersed, sought to edify [teach] one another. The wool-carder, John Leclerc, whom the lessons of the doctors, the reading of the Bible, and some tracts, had instructed in the Christian doctrine, signalized himself by his zeal and facility in expounding Scripture. He was one of those men whom the Spirit of God fills with courage, and soon places at the head of a religious movement. It was not long before the Church of Meaux regarded him as its minister.

The idea of a universal priesthood, such a living principle among the first Christians, had been re-established by Luther [earlier] in the sixteenth century.

But this idea seems then to have existed only in theory in the Lutheran church, and to have been really acted upon solely among the reformed Christians. The Lutheran Churches (and here they agree with the Anglican Church) perhaps took a middle course between the Romish and the Reformed Churches. Among the Lutherans, everything proceeded from the pastor or the priest; and nothing was counted valid in the Church that did not flow regularly through its chiefs.

But the Reformed Churches, while they maintained the Divine appointment of the ministry, which some sects deny, approached nearer to the primitive condition of the apostolical communities.

From the times of which we are speaking, they recognized and proclaimed that the Christian flocks ought not simply to receive what the pastor gives; that the members of the Church, as well as its leaders, possess the key of that treasure whence the latter derive their instruction, for the Bible is in the hands of all;

that the graces of God, the spirit of faith, of wisdom, of consolation, of light, are not bestowed on the pastor only;

that every man is called upon to employ the gift he has received for the good of all;

and that a certain gift, necessary to the edification of the Church, may be refused to a minister, and yet granted to one of his flock.

Thus the passive state of the Church was then changed into a state of general activity; and in France, especially, this revolution was accomplished. In other countries, the reformers were almost exclusively pastors and doctors; but in France men of learning had from the very beginning pious men of the people for their allies. In that country God selected for his first workmen a doctor of the Sorbonne and a wool-comber.

J H M D’Aubigne
BOOK 12 CHAPTER 8 page 0457 paragraph 3

Protestor's Note:

Allowing this principle to lapse has allowed many a man, or group of men, to take over the church and subvert it to their own ideas. Only while pastors and elders are regularly checked and asked for proof of their assertions can the people of the church fulfil Christ's desire for them to be united, for then they are all brethren.

It is only by having a diversity of opinions which are often quizzed as to their base in the Bible and therefore proved for their truthfulness, that true Protest-ant-ism can survive.

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